Fourth of July

Okay, since I have so much to catch up on, I'll just start where I left off and go from there.

Friday was Independence Day, one of my favorite holidays! I'm not a really sentimental person, but I do have deep feelings for my country and the freedoms which we enjoy here. One of the few times you might see me shed a tear is during the National Anthem. Happy Birthday America!

We started our 4th by inviting some friends for breakfast at Doug's parent's house. Merrill and Doug have been good friends since they met in the music program at Ricks, and then they were roommates at BYU. Doug was the best man at Merrill's wedding to Misty, and now they have three children! Time flies! Merrill just finished law school and is studying hard for the Nevada bar. We had a great time catching up, and of course I was so busy chatting that I didn't even take one photo! Duh!

Then we went over to grandma's to swim again - the girls just could not get enough of this, and my grandma is about my favorite person in the world so I don't complain.

Quick trip back to Doug's parents to make some food and start some laundry, then on to Bonnie's for the evening's festivities.

We had a fun barbecue at Bonnie's with the Ross family - yummy food, and fun to see them again. Their daughter Tonya was my best friend in high school, so it's always fun to see her again - although you can't really say we are great friends now, it's still fun to say hi, and especially to see her parents, who were my second parents way back when.

After dinner we headed to the BYU Lavell Edwards Stadium for Stadium of Fire. I've been several times over the years, so my expectations were high (it's usually a great show!). Overall, I was not disappointed. It's always fun when the skydivers land in the stadium carrying flags, and I really enjoy the patriotic section. The flyover from the Hill Air Force Base bombers is awesome!

Alexa and Whitney danced with the Stadium of Fire dancers, which were 1300-strong this year (perhaps to do with the headliner??). From our distant seats, we couldn't pick them out for the crowd, but we cheered loud for our dancers anyway and they did a great job!

The Blue Man Group was the opening act, and they were quite fun. I don't know that I could handle them for an hour or more, but for 15 minutes it was really fun. My girls loved it.

Then, Miley. Miley Cyrus. The cause for all the pandomonium. And I have to ask: why? I have never thought the girl was much of a singer. I'll give her this: she is an entertainer, and she did put a lot of fun and energy into her show. But for me it was just so-so. The sound was really weird - sometimes you could hear her just fine and other times not. After about the 4th song I was thinking, "Gee, all these songs sound exactly the same!". Even Morgan and Elise said they were a little bored by it. It probably didn't help that our seats were really high up (thanks to the stadium messing up royally on the way they did tickets and putting all the dancer's families up there even if they wanted more expensive tickets).

Oh, and Glenn Beck was the host, and he was good - although it was completely scripted so it really wasn't "Glenn Beck-ish" at all.

The fireworks were awesome, they always are. That is one thing you can count on at the SOF is the cool fireworks. Anyway, I will post a slide show tomorrow when I get home because I just made one and then deleted it before I saved it! Uck! I'm too tired to try again tonight.